Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Wednesday October 22, 2008 @08:46AM
from the to-the-moon-alice dept.

hackerdownunder writes "India's maiden lunar mission (Chandrayaan-1) got off to a flying start today. Describing the launch as 'perfect and precise,' the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), G Madhavan Nair, said that it would be 14 days before the satellite would enter into lunar orbit.
Chandrayaan carries eleven payloads: five designed and developed in India, three from the European Space Agency, one from Bulgaria and two from NASA."

The Third World is exploring space, developing scientists and engineers, and developing their economies.

Here in the US, we're developing our military, discouraging the study of science and engineering, discouraging all rational thought (God did it!), spending resources on some nebulous terrorist threat the will come some day (or so we're told), and developing industries based on chance and moving money around.

I wonder which society has better long term prospects for its people, economy, and Government?

India still also has a huge problem with poverty. There's still disease, unclean water, etc.

My parents spent a month there visiting friends and despite how quickly they're building up there are still many problems that need resolving. Maybe the moon mission is a good idea in some eyes, just as we are spending money on building weapons both of us should be putting it towards building schools, hospitals, and getting average Joe six pack health insurance so he can take care of that knee that has been bothering him.

The moon shot is one way to address the poverty. There is a huge market to launch payloads into the orbit. If India uses the prestige created by the moonshot to grab a significant stake in that market that will bring in money and pay for the infrastructure projects.

The idea that India should focus on poverty first and eschew other areas has shackled the country for many decades. Nehru and his daughter followed that philosophy. Grandson Rajiv broke out in 1984 but was very naive and reversed himself by 1988. It took Narasimha Rao and his finance minister Manmohan Singh to really put India on the right path. BJP govt instilled the country with some pride. India has to become the world leader in a few areas and then use the wealth it generates to alleviate the poverty.

BJP is a fascist party with deep seated animosity towards anyone who is not an hindu. During the BJP regime, they and their supporting parties unleashed some of the worst atrocities against minorities in India.

To state that they have somehow instilled pride in the Indians is like saying that the Nazi party instilled pride in the Germans. That is to say that we (Indians) don't need that kind of pride. Thank you very much.

Also your claim that the moon shot will address poverty comes from the same school of thought that believes in the discredited "trickle down" theory of development which essentially says that if you continue to pamper the rich that the money will somehow magically reach the poor.

We know how well that has turned out. The wage disparity between the rich and the poor has never been more stark. The poor are poorer (google farmer suicides in India) and the rich are richer (google new Indian billionaires).

I am fully in support of the Indian space programme and the wonderful work that ISRO is doing, but let us not kid ourselves - the moon mission has nothing whatsoever to do with mitigating poverty.

To compare the BJP to Nazi germany is a little extreme. They are pretty much as right wing as any other right wing parties in democracies through the world.
Why do people fail to see the commercial side of the deal here
Havent we heard of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antrix_Corporation [wikipedia.org]
essentially this is a TD hoping that we capture a larger share of the satellite launch market. Its current revenue is already 660 crores. ISRO hopes to get a larger share of the pie.

Other statistics and confirmation that "Space pays" may also be found in the 1976 Chase Econometrics Associates, Inc. reports ("The Economic Impact of NASA R&D Spending: Preliminary Executive Summary.", April 1975. Also: "Relative Impact of NASA Expenditure on the Economy.", March 18, 1975) and backed by the 1989 Chapman Research report, which examined just 259 non-space applications of NASA technology during an eight year period (1976-1984) and found more than:

$21.6 billion in sales and benefits;

352,000 (mostly skilled) jobs created or saved,and;

$355 million in federal corporate income taxes

Now, that said, it doesn't mean that the Indian program will be nearly as successful. But it does point out that these benefits are real and have been documented. Since some of the benefits are jobs creation, this can go towards benefiting people other than the upper class.

Depends how you do it, if your goal is to encourage people to set up companies and generate wealth/jobs then it's great, if your goal is to let your friends make a killing exploiting the poor then it's much much worse.

Whats with morons bringing up the poverty side of things everytime a scientific achievement of India is brought up? Yes there is poverty and Homeless in India. I see hobos in the UK too. There are more people in that country, so the ratio of Hobos is more.
Whats to be appreciated is this - With the kind of pressure that a democratic government faces, imagine the budget pressures an organization like ISRO has? Even NASA is buckling because of budget cuts. If ISRO can achieve things despite poverty, despite such tight budgets, its a much bigger achievement! Remember, this is not China we are talking about where scientific progress can sometimes come at the cost of the people. India is a democracy - Lives are being improved.
I used to live in whats a slum - in my childhood. Millions like me got a chance to improve because of an education system, flawed as it is, that is cheap.
Dont deride the scientific achievements in face of other difficulties the country faces. The country thrives despite adversity, and sometimes because of adversity!

"Fair" doesn't mean "everyone succeeds""Fair" means everyone gets a decent chance to succeed and those who get things right do succeed more.You can still get unlucky on a fair dice role and be screwed.

"Unfair" only kicks in when you go for multiple generations and players start with less chips and the game loaded against them.

Problem is that almost no societies are fair, they either remove the ability of those capable of doing well from benefiting from it for the sake of the losers or alternatively screw the kids of people who've done badly for the benefit of the winners of the last round and their kids.

Can poverty be "fixed"? For whatever reason some people are just not ambitious. Some don't want better than what they have and some don't think they can achieve better. Apathy sets in. Everyone knows someone who just don't seem motivated despite being intelligent.

I spoke with a guy last night who said he's been homeless for 15 years. He said his wife and kid were killed by a drunk driver. Now he drinks and lives on the street and basically just lives to forget. He seemed very smart, coherent, and p

If people in India become rich how will all the NGOs and Church groups who raise money based on sad looking photographs survive? The typical business model is for every 10 dollars raised spend a dollar on some unproductive charity in India and pocket the other 9 dollars and lead a lifestyle even most Americans cant dream of. The whole third world charity industry probably employs more people in the US than heavy manufacturing. If India becomes non-poor all these average Joe Six packs would be worrying abou

India's space program is different from those in US and other "developed" countries. India has always focused on the practical uses of space science. Communication, weather forecasts, delivering payloads etc. (instead of sending probes to pluto)

Elsewhere "space programs came as spinoffs of military programs, so the things the space program was expected to deliver were things that could be used in defense," says S.K. Das, a former ISRO official.

On the other hand, people never seem to complain when the government buys expensive airplanes. The Indian airforce decided in 2005 to upgrade its aging planes and buy 126 new multi-role fighter jets. [f-16.net] If we use an estimate from this contract, [f-16.net] in 2003 dollars this comes out to 126*$72.9 million per plane = $1.2 billion for the upgrade, approximately. Here, we're presuming that if they didn't choose F-16s, whatever they chose was of a commensurate cost. By contrast, the space mission which has many indirec

ISRO generates Rs.1.5 to the economy for every Rs.1 that it uses in funding. This is the immediate return alone. The sustained returns (improvement in education and agriculture through remote sensing), and commercial application of its inventions are not included in this figure. The goal of ISRO is to promote space research to benefit as much of the population as possible.

ISRO is also selling commercial launch and remote sensing and imagery services through it's commercial division - Antirix corp which is m

India's economy has turned around due to technology outsourcing to India by the rest of the world. This outsourcing started happening when Indians began showing the outside world that Indians aren't just the hungry clamouring mobs always shown on TV. As the world realized this, they began to see value in sending work to India. By accomplishing things like Chandrayaan, or building the Tata Nano, etc, Indians demonstrate to the world their talents and abilities, which increases the world's willingness to trade and work with India, creating jobs and economic growth in the country.
Some Indians commenting here are unfortunately the backward navel-gazing types, who will never understand the basis for economic growth and alleviation of poverty. They still think in the most primitive backward terms about how to bring development, prosperity and relief to the masses. The lost opportunities and economic stagnation of the past 50 years under the social welfare state show how such narrow mindsets can wreak havoc on a country. The answer lies in Indians showing each other and the world how to be achievers, instead of just beggars forever clamouring with their palms outstretched.

"India's economy has turned around due to technology outsourcing to India by the rest of the world. This outsourcing started happening when Indians began showing the outside world that Indians aren't just the hungry clamouring mobs always shown on TV. As the world realized this, they began to see value in sending work to India."

Nope. We began outsourcing to India because labor rates there are so much lower than in the U.S., not because of some perceived technological advantage. Pure economics. Very shorted

As for the Indian moon mission: yawn... Ho hum... Been there, done that. Forty years ago.

And we haven't been back in a while. If India is smart they will figure out how to colonize the large rock. I here there's crude oil under the surface. At the very least you have a giant rock you can do whatever you want with as long as it stays mostly in tact and in the same orbit without affecting the hunk of rock we live on.

I guess you didn't get the clue the first time round and/or are too lazy to do research.

Crude oil (theories otherwise and evidence for non-organic alternatives notwithstanding) comes from organic materials, i.e. fossil fuels. And whist it's possibly that one of Saturn's moons does have life and might supposedly have reserves of fossil fuels, there's zero evidence for that. What you're thinking of is Titan and its methane seas:

you sound like a holistic economist, even a neocon republican. those days are at an end.

this recent crisis have shown us how dangerous unwatched, ungoverned, unregulated capitalism can be. entire world economy brought down by a handful of rogue megacorporations juggling funds in united states.

this recent crisis have shown us how dangerous unwatched, ungoverned, unregulated capitalism can be. entire world economy brought down by a handful of rogue megacorporations juggling funds in united states.

It might take a hundred years but it will happen again. The root of the problem is some small groups got too powerful. The same can happen to governments, corporations, NGOs, religions, or even a national association of knitting circles.

The collapse was caused by the creation of GSEs, and the subsequent congressional pressure on those GSEs to ensure loans could be make to poor people that couldn't afford to pay them back. Essentially Fannie and Freddy said, make a bad loan, and we'll buy it from you, because we think those people deserve loans. Without government regulation, the loans would have never been issued in the first place. Your pontificating about socialist wet dreams and rogue megacorporations is unwarranted.

Only an idiot incapable of taking care of themselves would want to live in a social welfare state.

1.000.000 people unable to pay for their mortgages nets to a loss around $300 bn, if the houses were bought from $600 k by the bank and their values now $300 k.

thats only 1/3 of the cash us had prepared for its banks, its also around 1/10 of the cash that europe has provided.

you see, the funds provided had already covered approx 20 times that loss, if you count in what japan, korea and other nations have readied.

you should have understood by now that this is nothing related to unpaid mortgages or poor people, or fannie mae freddie mac. this is the bullshit that republican bastards are feeding you to get off the hook.

the real problem is this :

banks are allowed to lend approx 10 times the total assets they have. because its logical - money turns slow, so it doesnt create a problem. its all valid liquidity wise. this ratio is a healthy ratio and its checked by government regulation.

but, due to the lawless environment republicans and holistic economists have created by yelping 'hands off business' 'government out' 'government bad for economy, youll cost jobs to people', government regulation was totally hampered in that sector since reagan era.

then what happened ? in this unregulated environment, some bastards realized this ; if they show those mortgages as assets, and then create DERIVATIVE assets over them (called hedge funds in general because they accept all kinds of 'assets'), they can sell/trade those assets !!!

and they proceeded to do that. they created assets linked to those mortgage assets, then started trading them. attracted investors. those funds have inflated in value, disproportionately. imagine the funds value becoming $ 20 trillion instead of the mortgage value of $ 200 bn. this is round one.

in round two, they went further. they showed those DERIVATIVES as assets. meaning, despite they had $200 bn worth of mortgage assets, they now had $20 trillion worth of hedge funds/investments tied to those mortgages !! and they started lending by showing their total assets as $20 trillion plus $200 bn !!! see the point ? they started lending money THEY DONT HAVE !

see the issue now ?!

someone should have stepped in, checked their books and said 'hey, you dont have that much assets. what you are showing me as assets are actually derivative papers tied to OTHER assets. these are NOT real, and they are OVERvalued !!' and stopped them in their tracks.

but noone did. because a lot of poodles were yelping 'hands off economy !!'. so it went like this, those banks lent to countries, governments, megacorporations, traded those investment funds SO widely around the world that every bank in the world got infested by those funds.

The lost opportunities and economic stagnation of the past 50 years under the social welfare state show how such narrow mindsets can wreak havoc on a country.

This (often repeated) story about "lost opportunities during first 50 years of India" etc is a myth. It shows a lack of understanding of post independence history of India.

When India became independent there were groups of politicians who repeatedly argued against setting up of national laboratories and research institutions that exist in India right now. They argued that there is no need to "waste" money in those for a country like India, since one can always buy things from outside. If India had followed that approach it would be society with significant problems with poverty and related social tensions right now (If you need proof just look at the state of development of society in the country which is neighbor to India, which became independent during the same time).

It is ridiculous to not to notice significant success of poverty reduction and increase in living standard in a complex society like India without creating major social tensions (if you do not know - famines with repeated crop failures were common in pre-independence India). A lot of the credit for this goes to development of strong independent research and industrial base during the early stages (Indian space program is a part of this).

> Wrong. Indian IT exports(including BPO, Engineering Services, R&D, Software Products) is currently at $40 billion(source - http://www.nasscom.in/upload/5216/IT%20Industry%20Factsheet-Aug%202008.pdf [nasscom.in]). Indian GDP is around $1.1 trillion. Indian IT exports constitutes just about 3.5% of India's total production. Indian IT firms got excessive media attention, that is the reason foreigners think like this. Also, there are many sectors in India, which are growing faster than IT exports sector.

Ha! the wonderful belief that free market capitalism will solve all the worlds problems and mitigate poverty!

Do you really think that private corporations with no compulsions other than "shareholder value" will consider the good of the poor?

The private corporations don't have to care. That's the point of capitalism. The whole thing is based on the idea that if you have something I want and I have something you want, we negotiate until we find some mutually beneficial exchange which leaves us both better off. The crucial point is that I am only worried about my own well-being.

Do you really think that you and I would be better off if we sent our two things in to some central government committee, which would evaluate how much they were worth, how much we needed them, and how much we deserved, then take a cut to fund the system before handing us our Fair Share? I would much rather deal directly, TYVM.

That many large corporations (such as my employer) make correspondingly large donations to charity is also something to bear in mind, but the point is that it's not required, and the system ensures that there are advantages anyway.

The private corporations don't have to care. That's the point of capitalism. The whole thing is based on the idea that if you have something I want and I have something you want, we negotiate until we find some mutually beneficial exchange which leaves us both better off. The crucial point is that I am only worried about my own well-being.

What about the young, the old, the poor, the sick and the crippled who have nothing you want (goods, services, money) but need food, shelter and medicine?

Should your precious Free Market remove them from the face of the earth?

When you grow old and/or sick, and your savings are rendered worthless when the great Free Market has one of its funny turns, should you remove yourself from the face of the earth, or should the Free Market do it as you lie down and starve to death?

What about the young, the old, the poor, the sick and the crippled who have nothing you want (goods, services, money) but need food, shelter and medicine?

Ah, but they do have something I want, and that you want, too: Human dignity worth preserving.

Which brings us right back to the original question: What's a better way of getting what you want? Finding someone who needs your help, and helping them? Or referring them to a government bureaucracy that decides who needs help and how much, and takes your money for that purpose? Are you really convinced that the government does a better job of spending your charity dollars than you would?

if you're really comparing the poor in this country are living in anywhere near the same conditions as the poor in India or many many other countries on the planet you should travel more. When's the last time your neighbor got Cholera?

India is not / no longer part of the third world.
Wake up and smell the coffee. It is Asia that is going to rule the world this century. China and India are both in a race into space, both large players in the world economy (outsourcing of technical staff to india, industry to China). Besides, India and China have 1 billion+ innhabitants each so a third of the world population is living there..
Where America fails to deliver payload to the ISS (where Russia is succeeding) Asia is quickly catching up.
The whole world should turn their economy towards renewable energy and towards Asia instead of Oil and America. As european i don't understand where the american arrogance (and ignorance) comes from..
No flamebait intended

Yes its true that there are many opportunities in Asia now, let me talk specifically about India. The population may help in some respects but its a big problem as well. Most of India's population is in rural areas and is still quite poor.
I think 8 yrs before America wasn't looked at as badly as it is now, was it? Some bad decisions (by politicians and by Americans by electing those politicians+Wall St and whatever else) marred America's view and economy. But that doesn't mean it isn't still a great countr

I've read about india's rural area's. If only one person "escapes" from poverty the entire village benefits of it. It was a news story a few months ago about a preteen girl that turned tricks and by her first trick she was able to build her family a brick house..(how regrettable it is that she chose prostitution as a way out it WAS a way out and she chose to do so herself) But there are numerous stories. If one "peasant" starts working as a clerk for an multinational he does not only funds his village scho

The first paragraph there references the term's origins in the cold war.

I was under the impression it started off as that and was now that "3rd world" meant underdeveloped, like wiki says, but that was an adaptation. Initially it seems to be like the "First person, third person" perspective, with the US and nato allies being first person, because when we talked, the first person "we" meant first world countries. I guess 2nd world countries would be the communist bloc, although I've never heard that term a

I've never heard that one before - is that your own? Sure, the New World is America, but the Old World is everything that was known prior, which includes India, of course. Do you have a reference for your definition?

"We can pay them to come and be smart on our behalf because we have lots of money."

I could use economic phrases like "unsustainable trade deficit" or anthropological terms like "secondary loyalty", but something tells me that you'd need to hire someone to say something smart back.

If you want to know how well America's long term policy is serving it, look at the historical trend in US national (public and private) debt vis a vis its trading partners. Those figures will say far mo

Uh, maybe the reality is that the more people accept science, the less they are theists. I think theists tend to not understand that concept.

Science and god are opposites. The whole god concept has only been around a few thousand years, and yet the planet has existed for millions (and we are certainly not the oldest planet in the galaxy, as there is empirical evidence to back that up). If you believe some "being" in some form or another that cannot be scientifically explained at all is a reason for our plan

Science and god are opposites.... Of course, if you like to believe in magical sky wizards, please go ahead, but don't dare bring your beliefs on anyone else in the world. They are your personal beliefs and you should be entitled to that, but not to bring that upon other people.

I think you're being a little "black and white" on this topic.

Science and god aren't opposites. It's not either science or god. Science and god speak to completely different endeavors and areas of human interest. Science attempts to explain the physical phenomenon around us. Religion contemplates mans place in the universe, his role in it, and the "meaning" of our actions and lives.

Science tells us the big bang happened. If you don't believe in the big bang, that's your problem. However, there's nothing that stops you from believing in the big bang, and the notion that god was the prime force behind it -- essentially, creationism but on a much huger scale than typically explained by religions.

There are many educated, intelligent people, who are completely capable of believing that god exists and not have to worry about any incompatibility in these two beliefs. It's the belief that either science or religion are true and there's no room for them to coexist which is the problem.

At present, science can't disprove the notion of god. In fact, god and all that implies takes over where science ends. Believing that some divine power caused the big bang isn't irrational, it just requires a leap of faith. That leap of faith, however, doesn't need to be at odds with science. I know astrophysicists who accept all of the physics on face value and still believe that, ultimately, god is out there. Their belief doesn't in any way affect their objectivity behind what the science tells us -- their religion supports their spirituality and morality, and their science allows them to investigate physical reality.

And, before anyone accuses me of defending the concept of religion from the perspective of a religious person -- I was raised protestant, spent about 20 years being an atheist, and now buddhism informs my morality and world view, but I don't actually believe in a god per se. But, I don't believe that all people who do believe are a bunch of crazy wing nuts who are gullible idiots.

Science attempts to explain the physical phenomenon around us. Religion contemplates mans place in the universe, his role in it, and the "meaning" of our actions and lives.

That depends on the religion in question. Many religions are founded on the attribution of unexplained physical phenomenons to a supreme being, e.g. God. It is how they derive their authority and succumb people into belief. The way you view religion is too smart and sophisticated (no pun intended).

Of course that there is no evidence for God's existence is not necessarily evidence for God's nonexistence, though it might be if we had reason for thinking that if God existed there would be evidence for this.

You are applying a very, very limited definition of religion, almost to the point of being a straw man attack. Personally, I don't believe that God created man in his image, or built the planet Earth, or even caused the big bang. I don't believe that God reaches down and cures people's cancer overnight, or that he causes hurricanes and earthquakes to punish those who anger him. I'm not at all convinced that he does or ever has put holy words into the minds of prophets, or inspired any book that holds the

Of course that there is no evidence for God's existence is not necessarily evidence for God's nonexistence, though it might be if we had reason for thinking that if God existed there would be evidence for this.

No evidence for existence doesn't imply non-existence. That is true.

Then you say (I think)... that if god existed, and if we expected there to be evidence that he existed, our expectation of evidence being unfulfilled, we can then turn that into evidence of non existence of god. I think that's what

Only science as religion has any interest in competing with other religions. Science properly understood has absolutely nothing to do with religion, no relationship, not opposed, not in harmony, not interested since its realm is the demonstrable. Science is an incredible tool whose power is derived precisely from the constraints which keep it from ever being a religion, except when misconstrued by fools.

Science and god are opposites. The whole god concept has only been around a few thousand years

Not really; Science is the "How", and god is the "Why".

Also, although the oldest living religion (Hinduism) is estimated to have only been around 5000 years, I'm quite sure that religion as a concept has been longer, indeed Hinduism is believed to have evolved by absorbing pre-existing tribal religions. I'd bet my bottom dollar that religion and certainly spiritualism has been around since close to the dawn of Human civilization (admittedly still only a short period on geological timescales).

I am a Muslim, I fully agree with your uncommonly succinct and eloquent expression of this concept. I only wish more non-theists could understand this point rather than blindly (dogmatically!) disregarding religion as incompatible with modern scientific investigation.

Well, it cuts both ways. The theists sometimes dismiss scientific evidence on the basis that it is incompatible with their beliefs in what god did, and what we're supposed to be able to do with it.

It is possible to apply the scientific method selectively, as most religious folk do, generally within their own fields of expertise, while denying the truth exposed through the scientific method. This is a clear example of cognitive dissonance.

For instance most Abrahamic religions have within their core doctrine that the earth was created 6000 years ago, which may have sounded believable 2000 years ago, but which by today's standards is truly arcane. T

For instance most Abrahamic religions have within their core doctrine that the earth was created 6000 years ago, which may have sounded believable 2000 years ago, but which by today's standards is truly arcane.

I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure that's thoroughly wrong. The 6000 year old earth, or young earth creationism more broadly, is a fringe belief within Christianity. Catholics, for instance, won't have anything to do with it. The 6000 years number came from a Christian theologian a couple of hundr

"You have reached mission control. Your call is very important to us. Please hold and the next available representative will be with you shortly."

"This is Chandrayaan-1 we are losing thrust and are off course."

"Remember, mission control is here for you. Have you heard about our latest service pack upgrades and special licensing agreements? Press one now if you'd like to hear more. If not, continue holding and your call will be answered in the order recieved. Thank you for calling mission control!"

Our current knowledge of moon is infinitely superior than the knowledge of our own ocean. They say, Grass is always greener on the other side or may be it is the quest to build more powerful missiles in the guise of moon missions. Not blaming India, six others did that too.

To be fair, trying to explore space is a lot simpler than trying to explore the ocean. Under the sea, you have all the same problems of trying to maintain life in an airtight box, but that box is under significantly higher pressures, visiblity is a lot poorer, and there are a lot more things to run into. That's not to say that space exploration is easy, or even easier (especially on long trips), just that there are more unresolved engineering challenges to properly exploring the sea. And to be blunt, there'

may be it is the quest to build more powerful missiles in the guise of moon missions. Not blaming India, six others did that too.

Well, no. Evidence is that the rocket scientists in Russia and the USA built ICBM's because they could use them to launch things into space, and then spent a lot of time trying to convince their political masters that the OTHER side was about to start launching things into space, and so they should too.

In other words, it wasn't space shots -> icbms, it was the other way aroun

Not that old chestnut again.We've had 6 manned missions and a few probes to the moon, all commissioned by a handful of governments. Our oceans are being surveyed constantly, by both satellites and survey ships (including submersibles) sponsored by governments, research establishments and commercial operators alike.The moon missions just generate more publicity (ignoring the outliers like Jacques Cousteau).

I am extremely happy that space missions are gaining importance on the world stage, as I see living offworld as the key to human survival in the long run.

Part of me wonders if the trend in outsourcing provided the economic base and not too small a technological leg up that India needed to succeed. I realize they have an amazing (and selective) university system that makes many of ours silly by comparison, but I wonder if our "American Spirit" had no small part in enabling this. I wonder if what we have

Yes, in the nineties maybe. And you might get this spirit back through a future president. For now though, I feel like the world is a bit fed up with the USA trying to be the World's Knight in Shining Armor of Morale.
It's also a bit weird: Everybody has guns and violence is abundant on television, but God forbid (pun intended) that a breast is shown on tv.

To start the fire of the moonlanding conspiracy flame war (that will inevitably start somewhere in this thread), here goes -

The two NASA instruments are designed to layover images and data readings where the landers and equipment are or are thought to be. Whether through some fancy electronic trickery/photoshop, or they built a scale model that hangs in front of the lenses at adjustable distances, or some other kooky theory. [sidebar] Perhaps the ISRO could snap a few photos of the sites in question to

India showcased its low-cost space technology. Project cost only $79 million, considerably less than the Chinese and Japanese probes. Now world can outsource space projects to India. Another outsourcing industry started:)

This project also shows India's partnership with 14 other countries and sharing data and technology together.

But also take into account that the cost of the mission is a really tiny fraction of what the Indian Government spends on Poverty Alleviation programs. Also, ISRO's programs have also had an enormous role to play in some of these objectives, specially by providing weather forecasting and communication facilities. In other words, any criticism of India's space program on the basis of its other economic or social problems does not seem to hold water.

A sad truth but India is now reaching for the moon while millions in the nation (just recently been there) are still dying from hunger and live in seriously abject poverty. And I mean real poverty.

Long term this is a money maker for India; there's a huge market for commercial satellite launches and other payloads; by going to the Moon India is showing that they're serious contenders in that market "We've been to the Moon, getting your satellite into orbit is easy compared to that. It'll cost you $xx million that's $x million cheaper than NASA or ESA".

So? What are you trying to say? That India should wait until their problems are all solved? And for the rest of the world to move on?

And did you know that India is now a serious emerging player in the satellite launch market? If money is all you understand, please be informed that they will MAKE more money than they have spent on this mission. The reputation that the Indian Space Research Organization will gain from this will get them more launch orders. And that means more money.

Then how are you going to help those poor people? Give them free money and food so they'll continue to do nothing and further your poverty problem?

How about actually setting up a sensible education system, then a sensible industrial sector, and then a sensible R&D sector for future industries; so that people can be productive and build wealth for your country?

And the Indians are very good economists. Trickle down doesn't work, but what does work is moving the economy upwards in the tech chain. First you mine resources. Then you process what you mine. Then you make widgets. Then you put widgets together. Then you write the software to control the widget assemblies. Then you invent new things that need widget assemblies and software.

A country like Australia works because the population is tiny and the extraction of resources is large, but even so they have develop

Sooooo...where does the money to do all that come from? Is the Indian government providing money for mining, widget-making, and software, or is that coming from private industry which has the freedom to use its own money as it sees fit for investment?

Just about all of those studies are rather vague in their definitions, and appear to stretch some things. Here's the problem - a VAST majority of people in this country eat enough, have jobs, and can be educated. Period. There's an EASY formula to follow - graduate high school, don't get pregnant before marriage, and hold a job for two years. You WON'T be poor and you WON'T go hungry. This is a social/motivation/parenting problem, NOT a money problem in America.

The reason why I think this is progress is because India is a developing country. Their situation may be insightful due to their perspective on the situation. The materials they use, the way they manage it, the funding, the management, etc. Consider it a huge, multi million dollar case study for the world. Another example of this, the Tata Nano, is a revolutionary vehicle IMHO due to the audience it appeals to - developing countries. Another one I'm waiting on is mobile devices. These will, in many wa

I think they need to take a step at a time to get the funding. They may well do a Mars mission in the next decade, but if they had asked for 15+ years funding before any visible results were seen it would be hard to justify to the electorate.

And don't forget doing a single 15-year project means you're going to put 15 years worth of mistakes into a single project, which means the project will most probably fail after all the hype and fanfare.

It is much more sensible to go in small steps first, so that any problems will be solved before the big project.